the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (best detective novels of all time .TXT) 📖

with long dark hair and its’ grin would scare his daughter during the night. He had never known it was there, but the memory of its’ existence was so deeply rooted in his memory he felt he had been running away from that memory from another existence for a soul’s everlasting eon. He saw a strange face belonging to a tall man seducing someone he knew as his wife. He saw a small village seduced by a tall creature with horns and a forked tail.
Alexander had been sitting there by the table for so long, he could not remember when he last had looked up from his mug. He had registered his wife telling him he must do something. He had registered her telling the crowd something about keeping the spirit of the palace and of the kingdom alive. He had heard polite conversation start. He had heard a laugh or two, a window being opened.
He had seen his family members come up to him one by one and try to communicate. He had all seen them leave. There were words such as “He won’t leave from his place,” or “He seems numb,” or “What is the matter with our king, is he sick?” All he knew was that he could not believe what had just happened. He felt the table under his arms, his own velvet clad, purple elbows resting on heavy mahogany. The gilded silver crown he wore for decoration at feasts resting on his thick dark nest of hair. He saw the wooden, decorated floor on the side of his vision and how people moved about on their pointed red and green and yellow slippers with leather soles. He saw the crackling flames from the ebony, ivory and marble fireplace. He saw the tapestries of biblical tales hanging on the walls. He saw the chandelier that had somehow repaired itself. He saw his own hands covered in chicken fat and wine stains on his white, open shirt. He would not look up, not even when the heavy door occasionally opened and crashed shut as someone returned from a visit to the neighboring dry lavatory, whose secret passageway led to a tower.
For the first time in such a long time he finally looked up. What his eyes met made him cry a very small tear. Silently and tenderly, that tear rolled from the edge of his left eye down his cheek and down to his chin. It hung there, dangled and dropped and fell on his red, black and white ermine trousers. Belinda’s eyes had obviously been fixed upon him for so long that she too had been looking down, obviously praying as to when he actually would meet her stare.
A very faint smile appeared on her lips. The smile was not big and wide, for no smile that big was fit to crown this day. It was the smile of a thousand tears. Hope lay in that luminous smile as well as love. She blinked very slowly and sighed. Alexander could feel that sigh reach him and he sighed as well. He stood up very peacefully and walked around the table. When he reached his daughter, he embraced her. Time seemed to stand still; none of them knew what to say. It was as if no words were even fit or good enough to mend this day. Why say anything and if one did say anything at all how could it possibly encompass what everyone felt? Fear? Hate? Anger? Surprise? Awe? Jealousy? Triumph? Hope? Strength? Fire? Love? Hunger? Thirst? Spirituality? Wisdom? Trepidation?
Alexander felt his daughter’s soft breasts press against his own large chest. The heaving and falling of her chest made a slow breezy sound and as he felt his arms almost entirely surrounding her body he heard her snivel, breathing in some snot that came trickling down from her nose, due to tears.
She took up her cotton handkerchief and blew her nose and then returned it to her cleavage. Outside, the birch trees were swaying in the dusky wind. Unreal was the word he had sought. After almost an eternity sitting by that table a word finally came to mind that actually encompassed the situation. Unreal. Lucinda had promised to return with a deadly curse after thirty years official absence. She had actually returned as promised and not only that. She had returned on almost to the day the anniversary of her exile from the land and her following excommunication.
Belinda looked up, her eyes red from crying.
Alexander knew that she was looking at her so, although he was looking at the crowd now, he took his one hand from behind her back and caressed her cheek. Adoration was in her stare.
“All these people, what are they waiting for?”
Belinda gave out a nervous chuckle, a blend of hope and fear and humor and relief and love. “A miracle” she said. She looked out at the dark sky and smiled, pursing her lips. “A miracle.”
Suddenly, it was as if an angel came to visit his noble heart. He saw his entourage of fellow leaders, he saw his family and then he saw his daughter. Everyone was sitting in small groups of maybe four or five people, chatting quietly and not even willing to leave. It was as if they didn’t dare to leave this room for fear of starting something once leaving. This hall was a protection against the reality that wanted to devour them out there. So they stayed here until something happened for them to get the permission to continue living. Everyone in Medatlantia, at least everyone in this room, had known that Alexander had lived with fear of Lucinda for the past three decades. They knew about her black magic, her promises, her sorcery and her witchery. They knew and they also knew what he never talked about. It would pop out now and then and it was almost taboo to ask him about it.
Belinda’s nightmares were by now a very infamous part of public life. There was an “unspoken and uninvited family member” among them everywhere they went. Funnily enough, that family member was now gone, replaced by a promise. She had taken away the pressure but left something else. What they feared was that they had no idea what that unknown entity actually was.
What was going to happen after this? Alexander took his daughter by the hand and walked to the middle of the Grand Hall. Everyone looked up and suddenly a bright light was in the room.
He wondered at once where that light came from. But then he realized that the light was coming from himself, his own aura and his daughters. They seemed to be the center of all attention and there was great hope in these wonderful people’s eyes again. They were hoping for a rescue.
“Friends,” he began slowly, speaking to a crowd of reverend listeners. “I sat there looking at my own hands that I began to see them changing their form. My mug began looking like a grinning face on a box and my table took the shape of a large toad. I knew something had to be done. I was numb. I searched for the answer. Then I looked up and saw her.” He pointed to his daughter. “My dear Belinda.” He smiled and she leaned against his chest as they stood there in middle of the room. He sighed and chuckled. “It was as if the sun rose in my heart and I suddenly felt the urge to do what my sense of duty seems to compel me to do. Launch you back into what we are actually here to do: celebrate a wedding.” He shook his head. “Don’t let Lucinda win.” He paused, hearing merry murmur and a laugh or two. “I know that you are all contemplating the obvious. I have waited thirty years for this day to arrive. It is as if my heart was plagued by rain and storm the day my sister looked me in the eye so many decades ago and called me a liar, hoping I would rot and if I didn’t she would return in thirty years to ruin my life. She said back then that she would return in three decades to see that my life would become a misery and she did return, but by the Holy Father above I shall not let her make anyone miserable.”
The sigh that followed could have filled a generation. Slowly, the king carried on. “My first reaction back then was to flee. I fled my palace and took a mistress named Madeleine, stayed with her for two months in our mansion at the Baltic coast. My pregnant wife followed me, luckily, and found us – found me – philandering. That occasion nearly had me lose everything, including my land, my respect and my family. Only family’s prayers can be so strong.”
Alexander looked over at his wife and expected a smile. What he got was woman looking away, a woman who had not been able to forget this act of treason for three decades.
“My heart reached out to my wife and my unborn child and I prayed for them to return in time for Patrick to be born and then she did return from her home in Margetania.” He shook his head and uttered a thoughtful, melancholic laugh. “I know that you all know my story and that I as well as this girl here have dreaded for a long time for this day to occur, hoping it never would but knowing what we know. Now it has,” he poignantly added “and I am lost for words. I feel like a lost puppy.” He took Belinda by the hand and began walking around the room. “Most of you have seen and known Lucinda before and some of you are old enough to have witnessed that fateful day thirty years hence. You know that the memory of that day is so etched in ours that it hard to grasp that life once was so gay and happy without that fear hanging over us like a weird promise. We all know that and yet we also know that life is different, it can be better. The fire and imagery that my dear sibling uses is what it is. Self hate. No, I’ll just change that. It is self-loathing. It is the deepest and most profound hunger for glory in compensation for feeling lonely. She spits fire and hopes that it will reach our hearts. It cannot reach our hearts. We have so much to be thankful for. What has she got? She only wants to destroy our happiness. She cannot do that. She just hopes that we will be afraid enough to believe in her lies for that is what these words are. Lies. They only work if we believe in them. What you believe in comes true. Are we afraid? We shouldn’t be. She wants us to be.”
Belinda’s gaze was one of sheer delight. She adored listening to her father save the day. It didn’t happen that often, but when it did it was glorious.
“We shall remember that we have a prosperous kingdom with abundant nature. We have a summer festival coming up where hundreds of entertainers arrive to entertain us. Food is on the table and as far as I care we can party on way after our dear newlyweds have left. The royal family is full of love for each other and for you, urging you to take part in this prosperity, not believing this awful lying person who seems to hope that she can ruin our sleep by spitting acid into our dreams. We have signed a mutual agreement to link our lands and make them one. We are together forever in one pact, yet still